ROMANCE FOR ADVENTURING SOULS

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Friday, January 22, 2016

The Essence of Steampunk

What is it and why do we love it?

There is one word that is the most important word in the vocabulary of an author of steampunk romance. The word, my friends, is IMAGINE. Why would this simple word be the most important in an author's extensive vocabulary? Because, dears, without the word IMAGINE, there could be no steampunk.

Imagine a world where the Industrial Revolution never happened. Steam power is still the best and greatest energy source and it drives life, the economy, and war. Imagine that Britain, and not the Revolutionists, won the Revolutionary War. Imagine that India, and not Great Britain, becomes the greatest empire of the nineteenth century. What would the world be like if these things had happened? Would we "colonial Britains" drink tea instead of coffee? Would the population of the Western World be predominantly Hindu, Buddhist, or Jainist? Without the word IMAGINE we lose the essence of steampunk.

There was no greater previous time in civilized history for the advancement of science than the 1800s. From the development of Non-Euclidean geometry to the ideas of the Laws of Thermodynamics, humanity's mind was on understanding and utilizing the way the cosmos works. In the true history of the world, the 1800s saw the idea of evolution by natural selection, the Plum model of the atom, and the basic understanding of chemical thermodynamics. In a steampunk world there might be trains that fly on invisible rays of electromagnetic energy, or a world filled with mystical aether that can be used to do almost anything imaginable. Women could have earned the vote, not in 1832 (Britain) or 1910 (US), but far earlier. The world, in fact, could have been run by women!

These ideas are why the genre of steampunk attracts me so much. Literally ANYTHING is possible with a tweak to historical fact. The author can take liberties with social causes, wars, and the entire development of the modern world, if he or she makes a few pointed changes to the way things "really" happened. There is no limit, no idea too fantastic, for the steampunk author to tackle. Hot air balloons instead of jet liners? OK! Jet packs run on tiny steam engines? ABSOLUTELY! Everything the author needs is there in that one precious word.... IMAGINE. If we can imagine it, it can be true! (At least, in our stories they can!)

Find yourself transported to worlds where things are similar, and yet so very different. Let YOUR imagination run wild, while you immerse yourself in STEAMPUNK!

A FEW OF MY FAVORITE "STEAMY" READS:

AND OF COURSE:

Alchemist and Warden Wizard Icarus Kane has had his hands full with his protégé Cora Mae for the last six years. He is ready to settle into a quiet life in London, clearing demons and dark mages from the streets and making the city safer for all its people. But a dark mage with limitless power appears in London just when an uprising against magic begins to take hold in the poorer sections of London. Icarus will have to deal with the mage and the angry poor, while fighting his growing attraction for his beautiful apprentice. Accompanied, as always, by his best friend Archimedes Merriweather, Icarus will face the nightmares of his past and the fears of his future.